Erechtheus | Page 5

and his bride
under earth?Hast thou brought forth a wild and insatiable child, an unbearable
birth.?Fierce are the fangs of his wrath, and the pangs that they give; None is there, none that may bear them, not one that would
live. 360
CHTHONIA.
Forth of the fine-spun folds of veils that hide?My virgin chamber toward the full-faced sun?I set my foot not moved of mine own will,?Unmaidenlike, nor with unprompted speed?Turn eyes too broad or doglike unabashed?On reverend heads of men and thence on thine,?Mother, now covered from the light and bowed?As hers who mourns her brethren; but what grief?Bends thy blind head thus earthward, holds thus mute,?I know not till thy will be to lift up 370 Toward mine thy sorrow-muffled eyes and speak;?And till thy will be would I know this not.
PRAXITHEA.
Old men and childless, or if sons ye have seen?And daughters, elder-born were these than mine,?Look on this child, how young of years, how sweet,?How scant of time and green of age her life?Puts forth its flower of girlhood; and her gait?How virginal, how soft her speech, her eyes?How seemly smiling; wise should all ye be,?All honourable and kindly men of age; 380 Now give me counsel and one word to say?That I may bear to speak, and hold my peace?Henceforth for all time even as all ye now.?Dumb are ye all, bowed eyes and tongueless mouths,?Unprofitable; if this were wind that speaks,?As much its breath might move you. Thou then, child,?Set thy sweet eyes on mine; look through them well;?Take note of all the writing of my face?As of a tablet or a tomb inscribed?That bears me record; lifeless now, my life 390 Thereon that was think written; brief to read,?Yet shall the scripture sear thine eyes as fire?And leave them dark as dead men's. Nay, dear child,?Thou hast no skill, my maiden, and no sense?To take such knowledge; sweet is all thy lore,?And all this bitter; yet I charge thee learn?And love and lay this up within thine heart,?Even this my word; less ill it were to die?Than live and look upon thy mother dead,?Thy mother-land that bare thee; no man slain 400 But him who hath seen it shall men count unblest,?None blest as him who hath died and seen it not.
CHTHONIA.
That sight some God keep from me though I die.
PRAXITHEA.
A God from thee shall keep it; fear not this.
CHTHONIA.
Thanks all my life long shall he gain of mine.
PRAXITHEA.
Short gain of all yet shall he get of thee.
CHTHONIA.
Brief be my life, yet so long live my thanks.
PRAXITHEA.
So long? so little; how long shall they live?
CHTHONIA.
Even while I see the sunlight and thine eyes.
PRAXITHEA.
Would mine might shut ere thine upon the sun. 410
CHTHONIA.
For me thou prayest unkindly; change that prayer.
PRAXITHEA.
Not well for me thou sayest, and ill for thee.
CHTHONIA.
Nay, for me well, if thou shalt live, not I.
PRAXITHEA.
How live, and lose these loving looks of thine?
CHTHONIA.
It seems I too, thus praying, then, love thee not.
PRAXITHEA.
Lov'st thou not life? what wouldst thou do to die?
CHTHONIA.
Well, but not more than all things, love I life.
PRAXITHEA.
And fain wouldst keep it as thine age allows?
CHTHONIA.
Fain would I live, and fain not fear to die.
PRAXITHEA.
That I might bid thee die not! Peace; no more. 420
CHORUS.
A godlike race of grief the Gods have set?For these to run matched equal, heart with heart.
PRAXITHEA.
Child of the chief of Gods, and maiden crowned,?Queen of these towers and fostress of their king,?Pallas, and thou my father's holiest head,?A living well of life nor stanched nor stained,?O God Cephisus, thee too charge I next,?Be to me judge and witness; nor thine ear?Shall now my tongue invoke not, thou to me?Most hateful of things holy, mournfullest 430 Of all old sacred streams that wash the world,?Ilissus, on whose marge at flowery play?A whirlwind-footed bridegroom found my child?And rapt her northward where mine elder-born?Keeps now the Thracian bride-bed of a God?Intolerable to seamen, but this land?Finds him in hope for her sake favourable,?A gracious son by wedlock; hear me then?Thou likewise, if with no faint heart or false?The word I say be said, the gift be given, 440 Which might I choose I had rather die than give?Or speak and die not. Ere thy limbs were made?Or thine eyes lightened, strife, thou knowest, my child, 'Twixt God and God had risen, which heavenlier name?Should here stand hallowed, whose more liberal grace?Should win this city's worship, and our land?To which of these do reverence; first the lord?Whose wheels make lightnings of the foam-flowered sea?Here on this rock, whose height brow-bound with dawn?Is head and heart of Athens, one sheer blow 450 Struck, and beneath the triple wound that shook?The stony sinews and stark roots of the earth?Sprang toward the sun a sharp salt fount, and sank?Where lying it lights the heart up of the hill,?A well of bright strange brine; but she that reared?Thy